From past to present

• Photographer
  Kristina Marinova

The photo essay consists four pairs of photos. It is just a small part of my unpublished photography book called “From Past to Present”. A book which puts a black and white photograph of the Bulgarian communist monuments, as it used to look like the time before 1989, next to a color one of how it remains today-ruined, scratched, covered with swastikas and uncensored graffiti. I found the black & white photo archive after I made my trip. I bought a small collection and its copy rights from Bulgarian Telegraph Agency and I put them next my point of view. Now we can better see how the time has passed for this huge ideological monument of Bulgaria… ON THE PHOTOGRAPHS: (past and present time of the Pantheon Buzludja monument, 20 years after the changes in 1989) Pantheon Buzludja, 1981, height: 70m Built in memory of two heroic epochs: 1878-Liberation of Bulgaria after 5century slavery and 1944-antifascism victory. The House Monument of Bulgarian Communist Party is the biggest ideological monument in Bulgaria. It is located on the mount Buzludja (1441m) in the Balkan Mountain. 16 million lv (8 million euro) were collected, back then from the nation as ”donations” for constructing the monument. 20 years later, it falls apart…